Second Option
by Scarabbug
Summary: In a dangerous world that may or may not be our distant future, a small band of “heroes” attempt to bring forth the Chosen One of times long past. Only no one thought to inform them beforehand that the Chosen One came as part of a package.
1. Prologue: Once upon a wait Wrong story

**This might seem odd, at first. It takes the form of an AU, but is connected to canon. Just consider it as taking place in some weird time gap between **_**Waking the Dragons**_** and **_**Dawn of the Duel. **_

**The beginning of this fanfic was heavily inspired by an Ace Lightning fic created by Fanfiction net poster **_**Sarah Frost. **_

**I am currently taking title suggestions. **

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_"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out 'til too late that he's been playing with two queens all along."_  
**- Terry Pratchett. **

Prologue. 

Once upon a time, there was a man of great wealth, bequeathed to him by past generations. This man somehow found his way into realms that were better left well enough alone, especially by humankind. He was lead to these places by grief and desperation and he paid for his curiosity by becoming a Chosen One, a creator who then went on to resurrect a God and almost tear the world to pieces.

(Three Gods, actually, now that I think about it.)

This is not his story.

Also somewhere around this time there lived a teenage girl with a heart of gold. She danced all the time, both awake and in her dreams until she was stronger and better than anyone. Her strong dreams turned her selfish, once, and nearly turned her heart to tin, until one day she looked right through these dreams and saw herself in a present where those around her might fall apart if she didn't help _Them_ do something about it.

(So, she helped Them do something about it. After all, better that than to just allow the world to end without so much as raising her voice.)

This is not her story, either, but she mustn't be forgotten. She _did_ exist, and in the form we just mentioned. But she existed in other forms, too. Not all of them were such talented dancers. Not all of them knew how to balance their dreams with their sacrifices.

There is one more person to mention, for this girl had a friend who had been with her since childhood: a boy who unlocked something far bigger than himself. Now it was his turn to end up as a Chosen One, and drag them all into darkness again.

This is…

It really _is_ his story. His and the _Other's_, but we can talk about him later. And anyway, he is impossible to forget. He fought for his kind, against gods and shadows. Darkness destroyed him and hope brought him back. More than once, if memory serves correctly. The first time it was the first Chosen One who killed him. The second time the darkness did. The third time his soul was ripped away by the mind of someone he had always trusted. The story has always ended the same –with this boy being murdered again and again, and being reborn from it every time, just because there were people who lived that loved him too much to let him die. There is nothing new about this story. It is only important because it is his.

So. Let's start over from the beginning.

Once upon a time there were a million citizens in a distant world that may, or may not be our very own futures, who staked their existence on the arrival of a Chosen One.

Nobody thought to warn them that, however, the Chosen One they longed for came as part of a package.

Here's a math problem to end this beginning: what is the answer to one plus one? Any guesses? Of course, the answer is obvious to you. But maybe it was not so obvious to them.

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	2. Chapter 1: Bets and Reasoning

**A fanfiction which takes the form of an AU (sort of), but is connected to canon. Just consider it as taking place in some weird time gap between **_**Waking the Dragons**_** and **_**Dawn of the Duel. **_

**The beginning of this fanfic was heavily inspired by an Ace Lightning fic created by Fanfiction net poster **_**Sarah Frost. **_

* * *

Chapter One: Bets and Reasoning. 

Outside, the world of Domino City had become a formless mass again.

He sat in the window of the "drawing room" where they'd left him, curling his fingers around the wire mesh and watching as the streets below him vanished and reappeared, as they often did at random intervals.

Even taking his current circumstances into account, he had to grateful to at least be _inside_. Often he would have been stuck out there, in streets where anything could happen. And "_anything_" was a description that those who lived in Domino City took _extremely_ seriously. He knew people who had gotten lost in these mists and ended up walking right into card rituals that shouldn't have been happening, had vital organs suddenly disappear without leaving a mark on their bodies, woke up short sighted when they used to be long or otherwise had their entire _being_ vanish altogether. He even had a friend who had been stupid enough to sleep on the streets and woken up blind, deaf and dumb in the morning. And never mind what happened to the _Bound_ ones.

He'd been a stupid idiot, too. A few weeks ago he had passed out on a rooftop in the middle of a fight with some anti-duellists and now he couldn't go anywhere where there might be a gas or poison risk (which was pretty much half of the whole damn city). The mists had stolen his capacity for taste and ripped away his sense of smell.

Still, as far as things went out here, that wasn't all that much to lose.

What he was about to lose _now_… yeah. _That_ would probably be a whole lot worse.

He remembered something his father used to say –a bitter, spiteful, ugly old man, but at least he had a shrewd head for business that Devlin had never dared to ignore. _'Patience, boy. Have patience for yourself. Wait until the mayflies die.' _

His father had always had a thing about death. Delvin figured bitterness and injustice was all that had kept the old man alive all those years after something had twisted his body into something foul and terrible. Whatever that had been. Probably a storm of some kind.

So that was what he was doing now. Being patient, waiting for mayflies.

Outside of the doorway, he felt something shuffle and was just a little grateful that it wasn't his hearing he lost. He knew all about using all of his senses. To him, just losing a simple knack like the ability to distinguish different tastes felt like losing his writing hand.

'You know, I already know you're out there. Why not just open up already?'

No answer came from behind the large door which looked like wood but certainly hadn't _felt_ like it when he'd tried to ram his way through almost two days earlier. It didn't matter. He knew they were there. He could _feel_ them. 'Oh, come_ on_, I've been locked in here for what? Forty eight hours? And you led me here through a goddamn _catacomb_ that made the Labyrinths look like a kiddie's game, _where_ exactly would I go?'

How about somewhere where I won't get killed, for starters? A tiny corner of his brain mentally answered his own question. He promptly warned that part of his mind to shut the hell up and let him deal with this his way. From behind the door there came a sudden giggle –he knew his thoughts had just been read.

'It sounds like you really expect me to care, Devlin. If you got lost somewhere down here it wouldn't be my problem.'

He knew that voice and who it belonged to. So, it was her they'd sent for him, then. He really should've figured,

When he lifted his head from the mesh and looked round, she was stood in the doorway with the other girl floating just above her shoulder in the vaguely transparent form of a ghost the way she always did. He always blinked whenever he saw them.

They looked different at first glance, and for Bound Ones that was kind of unusual. The girl without form might as well have worn nothing at all, since the white of her clothing clung and drifted in a way that made her seem altogether shapeless. (Bound to the enemy she might be, but Devlin still knew how to appreciate a good figure). The solid woman, meanwhile, had chosen brown. All brown, with the occasional hints of yellow and blue for the shirt beneath her jacket. Their hair matched and their eyes, though different colours, held the same smooth angles and overly-large irises.

Devlin sneered. 'Oh, _sure_ it wouldn't,Bound Girl Number three-thousand-and-whatever-the-hell-you-are. Because _you_ wouldn't have to find me again in a maze built specifically to confuse _humans like us_ out of our tiny minds, now. would you? It's not _your_ job to look after the inmates, make sure they don't try and get out and _drug them_ when they get too rowdy. Sure. That's not your problem at _all_.'

If she was insulted, she didn't much show it. She walked slowly across the room and raised a hand to light the oil lamp (oil being about the only thing they could really rely on not to go crazy whenever a Storm hit) hanging from the wall. 'I don't like to make drugging a habit, you know. You brought this whole thing on yourself.'

'Really? That's funny, I don't remember signing a contract. You know I usually give my services in writing only. Anything else is just too risky.'

The girl was biting hard on her lip, blue eyes cold and staring right through him, but he paid no attention to that kind of coldness. He was a businessman, after all. He was brought up to tune out that kind of irreverence. 'You won't be signing any contracts here. They won't be necessary.'

'No, I'd figured.'

It's amazing to him that they find the time for just a brief moment of silence. In that brief moment he pretends not to look at her, turning his ace to the transparent girl who is drifting idly from wall to wall, clearly in a bid to ignore the conversation between the teenage stock broker and her solid Other Self. And all that time, the solid girl doesn't look away from him. Her cold, blue eyes are fixed on him like lasers. They'd probably be pretty if they weren't so damned disturbing.

'So, are you ready to kill me yet?'

'Don't you think you're being just a _trifle_ melodramatic, Delvin? It's not as if it's one hundred percent certain that this whole thing would cause any permanent damage.'

'Then why the need to drag me here, gabbed and bound and semi conscious?' Delvin snorted across the table. He imagined she could feel his sarcasm and, actually, she probably could. 'Still, it doesn't matter to you, either way, right? So long as I do the job you brought me here to do.' he sat up straight in the (metal cast, he noted) recliner and stared at her through hard, green eyes. 'Let's get one thing straight here, Gardner. I have no intention of dying for you, or anyone else in this city.'

'So you'd rather condemn us all to the storms? Because you realise that that's what you would be doing.'

'I never asked to be chosen for this,' Delvin snapped.

'And I never asked for you specifically. It's a tough break on all sides, Delvin. Get used to it, because it all ends here, one way or another.'

Just as he had expected, really –as cold a bitch as the first day he'd met her. Even if then they'd both been children, hiding from the Storms in an upturned skip. She'd been angry, even then. An angry little girl lashing out at the storms which would have killed her (or at least made her lose some organs) if he hadn't gone out to pull her back in.

But that was in the past now, Devlin thought. And he'd never been one for dwelling. 'So, now what? Your freaky experiment is all ready for me? You don't even know if it'll work/ I'd bet my whole shop you haven't even tested it.'

'Nice one, Delvin, but everyone in the city knows what happened to your _shop_.'

'Uh… Mistress, are we ready here?'

'Shush, Mana. I'm not _finished_.'

'I know,' the girl floated down from an upside down position somewhere near the ceiling. Her strange half-visible feral green eyes were firmly fixed on the boy. 'I wasn't asking if we were finished, I was asking if we're _ready_.'

Funny how that thing's smile was so infectious, even given the fact that she was discussing the state of his very life as if he were some kind of hypothetical creature you were deciding whether or not to kill. Duke imagined talking to her without the constant presence of her prim little mistress. These imagined conversations were always interesting, but of course (perhaps mercifully) they were also impossible. Bound ones went nowhere without their human; it was a spiritual impossibility.

Or so he'd heard.

'I _know_ what you meant, Mana. But I haven't decided whether we should just chuck him into the storm yet. He'd certainly deserve it, for all the trouble he's caused.'

The floating girl's hair wavered in a non existent wind. 'Mistress, you know there's no need for such things.'

Devlin allowed a half-smirk to play across his lips. 'Listen to your little ghost friend, Mistress. We all know actually do it.'

'What?' Téa grimaced when the floating girl responded to Duke's comment just the way he'd wanted her to.

Devlin leaned back in the chair he sat on, one arm cast flippantly over the back. 'Oh, nothing for you to be concerned about. I'm just talking about what your dear little _mistress_ said. All her talk about throwing me out into the storm. That's bullshit. You need me alive. Alive and in this room, or else your little plan won't work, and there's no guarantee I'd come back alive if you tossed me out into that mess,' he brandished over at the window with one thumb. He wasn't actually entirely sure how he'd ended up standing upright, arms folded in the middle of the room. At some point he must have unconsciously adapted such a defensive position without noticing he was doing it. 'You'll never be able to do this without me.'

The grimace on the brunette's face told him that his bluff was correct. They wouldn't kill him. Not yet, at least.

'But… you know that's silly too,' Mana frowned. 'My mistress wouldn't do something like that.'

'No, I guess not directly, huh?'

Duke hadn't thought it possible for levitating beings to _shuffle_ on their feet, but the floating girl managed it all the same. 'Not directly,' she said, in faint agreement.

'Mana, stop letting him taunt you. You know it's not worth the bother. People like him would normally be a dime a dozen. As it happens, though, he's right. _And_ he seems to have worked out the purpose of the room. Pretty clever, actually. Most people don't work it out.'

'Looked like there were too few books and notes for this to be a real study,' Devlin said, dryly. His voice was free of all humour now, because when you got down to it, this was really no laughing matter. 'What's with the dodgy fake décor in here, anyway, Téa? Do you people like your victims to feel more at home when you rip them into pieces? Or maybe it's more to put them off… to make them think they can still get away when they've been trapped under your fingertip all along.'

'Something like that. But mostly, it's just that we'd rather the people we're calling _in_ don't feel like they've stepped into a scene from Frankenstein's monster,' the girl called Téa said dismissively. 'It makes everyone feel a little more comfortable. Maybe you'd have been better of if you hadn't worked it out.'

'_Sure_ I would've.' Delvin cast another quick glance around the room. The floating girl was playing with a row of fake notebooks filled with gibberish scattered about on the tabletop. They weren't real books written in any real language –he had worked that out not long after they put him in here. The room was made up to look like wood and marble and wallpaper, but everything was hard and metal underneath the surface. The door was unbreakable, the windows made of the kind of unbreakable bioplastic they used to make emergency Storm shelters. It looked like a study and acted as a prison. And a place where they could deal out his destruction, without even having to risk letting him out again. 'I suppose I should be flattered. I'm actually important enough that you felt you had to trick me. But then again I should've known better.

'I had hoped you'd understand our situation,' the girl, Téa, had sat down on the desk in front of him, hands folds across her lap. Some of the malice had vanished from her eyes but it didn't do squat for Delvin's opinion.

'I understand the situation. Doesn't mean I have to like it. And you're working to _what_ here, exactly? Some ancient legend? Psychic Prophecy? The words of a weird old guy in a cloak and hood, telling you the end is nigh? The _end is nigh_ here every time a Storm comes, so _that_ really isn't going to mean much.'

'I suppose you think you're funny.'

'I know I _can_ be funny when I **_want_** to, but this isn't exactly the time for jokes. Sarcasm – sure. But not jokes, Téa.' He leant back and put his feet up on the desk. The fact that the chair he was sitting on had been literally bolted to the floor didn't exactly make this easy, but he managed all the same. 'You got this insane idea from _somewhere_ and the undergrounds have been buzzing with it. For all I know you just looked all this up in your secondary school history books. I don't know. I don't exactly care. Whatever it is, it's probably bull and I don't feel like dying because of that.'

Which those words, Devlin folded his arms and waited.

And all the while, Téa continued to stare at him, the scowl invisible on her mouth, but still pretty obviously there in her eyes. For a second, it felt as if she was going to reach out and touch him but stopped herself in the nick of time. Just as well. Delvin didn't think he could've stood the feel of her. 'We're doing this whether you like it or not, you know. Everyone has to make sacrifices, most they don't even know about.' And then as quick as anything, her face reverted back to a frown. 'You should know as well what happens to the stupid, Devlin. How's your sense of _taste_ today?'

…Still that one was really more of a forced insult then he'd been expecting from her. He wasn't sure whether or not that knowledge made him feel any better.

* * *

The lights were far too bright in the Next Door Den, but that was the way he had always preferred them. Besides, it was important that he see well for what it was he was working on.

She stood there in silence for a long while, just gazing at it and taking in its strangeness. A construction built over the last five years with nothing but old textbooks and legacies to base it on. She could hear the sounds of movement, tinkering around on the machinery's shadowed side and the gentle hum of a frankly unsafe amount of electricity that was currently running through the chamber around them. If she passed too close to the machine, she could feel her hair begin to stand on end.

Téa had once had books in her room that told her stories of when people darned clothes with thread on massive wheels operated by foot pedal. When she first caught a glimpse of the "finished" version of the machine now taking over at least half of the five by five metre room they were stood in, Téa had decided it was something like that. It could probably only be compared to a large, metal spinning wheel, or else some kind of loom that had been broken into pieces and stuck back together by inexperienced hands.

'Is that you, Téa?'

'Mm. It's me. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I just thought you'd like to know there are already another fifteen of us based around this level. A couple even offered to stand on the streets just to look out for visual irregularities.

Ryou's large brown eyes blinked vaguely in the mildest of surprise. 'Really? That's very brave of them.'

'It's very stupid but what the heck. This whole scheme is bringing out the crazy in everyone. If they think it'll help, I say we let them take the risk. Just want you to know that they're all waiting for whenever you need them.'

A small smile was passed to her from over a mess of what appeared to be metal piping filled with a metallic filament. Téa didn't pretend to understand for a moment how the damn this was supposed to work. She just cared that it actually _did_. 'You're looking out for me again. I'm glad. You put my Other out of a job, Gardner.'

'The less time _he_ spends around you the less likely I am to fuss, you realise that don't you? Not my fault you're such a klutz and he's such a hard ass bastard about everything you try to do. I bet he's going to show up tonight. Probably half an hour too late.'

'Mm. The lights, please, try not to mess with them when you come in. I sent so long getting them just right.'

Téa shifted far too carefully between the filaments of light that wound their way across the chamber. She knew how much he hated the dark. She'd actually been trapped in the catacombs with him once before. That was how she met the Archaeologist's boy Ryou Bakura, when they just happened to come together in the Guild.

Still, the filaments seemed to work better than the gas lights, or so Ryou claimed. Even though she had warned him about a thousand times of the risks of using electricity in a Stormfront.

The silence between them remained soft and companionable and after a couple of minutes, Téa began to feel her anger at the other boy draining away to the back of her mind someplace. What did his words and ideas matter, if he'd probably be dead in a few hours anyway? Téa didn't know quite why Ryou had chosen the room with the two way mirror to complete the machine, but since he had to work there now because of how the machine had been positioned, it kind of worked out anyway. She watched him mess with cogs and springs he had all but no idea how to operate, just as she had watched him for months. Slowly but surely getting to grips with the thing they were trying to accomplish.

The greatest feat of technological ingenuity ever attempted since before the burning, when half of Domino city was ripped apart by the first of the Stormfronts and the other half spiralled into death, destruction and the endlessly reality altering mess that the ever changing storms wreaked upon all of those the first storms hadn't killed. No one knew what of the old 300 year old world remained beyond the storms anymore. All they could think about was surviving within it, and avoiding the storms wherever they could. It had been a very long time since Domino City had seen this kind of technology. To have it in anything close to working order was a miracle in and of itself.

But they needed a bigger miracle than that, Téa thought as they stared at the machine together. They needed this miracle to work. And if they needed the flesh and blood and spirit of an old acquaintance to make that happen, then you could bet money that Téa would allow it, regardless of what her Other Mana might have to say on the subject. And she often _did_ have something to say.

'You should really try to be more prompt in future. You're lucky this time. I was far too busy checking we have the balances right on this goddamn machine of theirs to pay much attention to the time. As it happens, you took plenty of it.'

'No, _he's_ the one who took his time. I think he wanted to drag it out as long as was humanely possible. It's typical of him to do that really. I mean, whoever _wants_ to die?'

'Ask an immortal that question, Téa. In this world, in this time. You might be a little surprised by their answer.'

'Idiot. I mean what kind of _mortal_ being would willingly choose to die? Where's your spirit?'

'As far away as our natural distancing will allow us to be, with any luck. And I think that's meant to be my line right now, isn't it?'

Téa glanced vaguely in the direction of the room she'd left. 'Mana is keeping an eye on him.'

'Alone with the human boy? Well, that's an impressive show of trust on your part, Miss "she doesn't-go-to-the-bathroom-without-me Mazaki.'

Téa smiled. She couldn't help it. 'Shut _up_, Ryou.'

And Ryou smiled at her, soft and gentle and not at all the face of a killer and…

And just knowing that made her grimace inside.

'Of course. We've been doing things of this sort for years after all. You shouldn't get so worked up about them. I'm sure if they understood things better, they would see how this is necessary.'

Téa felt herself begin to smile. 'You might just be the most merciful killer I've ever met, Ryou Bakura.'

'And I don't appreciate the title,' Ryou murmured, standing up as straight as he could, (given that a Storm six years ago had removed at least six of the vertebrae in his back without leaving so much as a scar). 'You don't find it an awful label?'

'If I found it _that_ awful, I wouldn't do it. You know the difference between cruelty and necessity. I hardy expect someone like _him_ to understand the concept.'

Ryou shrugged as best as his back would allow him to. 'Whereas you understand it perfectly? How long has it been, Téa Gardner, since you were on first name terms

'I don't think I've ever been on first name terms with them,' Téa scowled into the spindle-like surface of the machine Bakura continued to tinkle with, following the line of wires and bolts leading into the walls of the chamber around them and making their way, virtually invisible, through the one way glass window of the Dice Boy's next door prison.

'He's just one life, and not even that. He's not worth his weight, after all. Not without another self. Just… one single half a life

'And yet, it's a strange thing, isn't it?' Ryou said, carefully adjusting the nearest "spindle" on the contraption.

. It's better than letting two bound ones die. And it's better than losing half a city, I just…

It's alright. I understand.

'Ra, I _hate him, _Ryou. You know that, right? But that…'

'Shouldn't make a difference,' Ryou finished, and patted her shoulder absently in a brief display of comfort and contact that she allowed so few to offer her. a few seconds later he changes the subject. Still, he also knows her well enough to know when to change the subject.

'This machine is something quite magnificent, when you break it down, Téa. I still… I mean, frankly, I don't understand it all. I know was much as we can possibly know by now. It's going to have to be enough.'

Téa shivered just a little, even in the heat of the electrical static. 'The storm is getting stronger. Are we ready?'

'As ready as any of us are going to be. You should go call for Mana now. We wouldn't want her to be stuck in there when the fusion begins.'

'If it does,' Téa snorted mildly as she stepped back over the wires and away from the spinning-wheel like contraption taking over half of the room.

* * *

They left her alone with him for a while.

He'd been waiting and hoping they would. Actually, he'd been counting on it. She had what he wanted –what he needed– right there with her, after all. He wasn't all that sure, at first, that they could even be separated like this at all. He'd never seen bound ones to stay very far apart.

'You're waiting for the peak of the storm, right?'

The vague girl looked at him when he spoke, still shuffling her feet against nothing but air. 'Uh… I… pardon?'

'The storm. I said that's what you're waiting for. For the time when we can feel the world shifting in all those little tremors. That's how your little room here works, right? It's running on the channelled power of the Reality Storms. You're probably using a card of some kind to do it, but I can't be certain which one. There are tonnes you could use which have that kind of attribute.' He leaned forwards into from the desk and watched her, picking at her nails. 'That's how you're messing with the timeline, isn't it, Mana? That's how you're going to bring _it_ here. Assuming it actually _is_ a human.'

She didn't answer his comment directly but then, she didn't have to. He didn't need her to respond to know that he was right. 'Only that's not enough, is it? Can't be. Because when you get down to it, _all_ the cards' power comes from humans. We're the heart of where the storms began, so you need one of _us_ to complete the circle. You need a living person to. A special person who's all their own, and not tied up to another self.'

'It's… more convenient if your power's not spread across two bodies, really,' Mana said. Ah. Finally – an answer. Even if it was mumbled and barely loud enough for him to hear it. She knew what he was doing of course –pushing her to break her silence and talk to him without the presence of her mistress. Hopefully, she'd just assume he was lonely (as her kind so often seemed to think he must be) and leave it at that.

'Don't be embarrassed on my account. It's not my fault I was born this way, right? There are more of you in the world than there are of me, after all, aren't they? Strength in numbers counts for something… what was your name again? Mana?'

She nodded just a little bit, and winced the second she did so. It figured. This thing really would talk to anyone if you left her alone for long enough.

He kind of wondered why Téa Gardner would be so stupid as to leave her obviously composure-challenged friend alone in the presence of their detainee, but he wasn't going to complain about it. 'Maybe if I'd had one of you…' he went on, putting most of his weight against the table. '…and magic, just like everyone else, I wouldn't have been in this mess, huh?'

'You wouldn't,' Mana mumbled. 'Because… because we don't need a Bound one.'

Delvin's eyebrow raised a little over a single opened eye and chuckled under his breath. 'I'm right then, aren't I? That _is_ why you need me. I always thought Duke Delvin here was one of a kind. It figures of course. What I don't exactly get is why this person had to be me. I had a life out there, you know. It wasn't much but it was mine. I kind of wanted to do something with it.'

'Life is not fair, mister Delvin,' Mana said in a cold voice that was _so_ obviously put on, it might as well have been captioned, or something. It was probably a quote from a long time ago, said by someone that nobody remembered.

'Oh? And isn't that a textbook answer? But then the textbooks are probably right, really. Life's all a game of chance. I lost this roll, but don't you worry, I'm not going to blame you for it. Just the kind of guy I am.'

'It's not that I'm bad,' Mana said softly, and as much pity as he might've felt for her, Delvin had to agree with that one. No – she wasn't bad. He knew all about tough streets and tough lives and he knew that _lying_ was a part of those lives. The rules of Domino were lain out quite simply: destroy or be destroyed and stay out of the storms. He'd lived by those rules and he knew she did too. 'And if I could make it easier… you know what I would. I don't want any of this to happen, it's just because it's our only chance.'

Now, he figured, would have been the perfect time to reach out and ruffle her hair if she weren't pretty much completely intangible, so he settled for a soft 'I understand,' and actually managed to make it sound like he did. If he got out of this alive, he was so going to thank his father's grave for teaching him how to think this quickly. 'And there is one thing, that you could do, Mana. That is, if you really _want_ to.'

The girl looked up at him. Intrigued, and Delvin was really hoping like hell that Mana hadn't been lying to him and that Téa wasn't listening, reading her thoughts and picking up on Delvin's tactic. This would probably never have worked on her.

'…Yeah?'

'Yeah. You can. You can give me my dice back.'

Mana hesitated, leaning back against the fake-papered wall and biting her bottom lip. 'You… you know I'm not supposed to do that.'

'Sure I know, but I still don't _get_ _it_. It's just a couple of pieces of stone, right? Come on. What good can I possibly do with them now, huh?' Mana didn't look convinced and Delvin kept his smile plastered on, for fear of breaking his cover. Surely he hadn't misjudged her completely? Surely Mana wasn't _that_ smart. 'I mean… I just want my things back, Mana. Let me go with that at least.'

'I guess… at least,' the girl continued to shuffle for a few moments longer. Then she held out a hand towards him, and he held his own hand out under hers, casting a brief glance towards the room's invisible mirror.

Mana opened her fingers to let the pieces fall into Devlin's hand. He curled his fingers around them, smiling. 'Thanks, girl. It's appreciated.'

'You won't tell them that I did that, will you?'

Devlin thumped a hand over his heart, the way he'd seen her "mistress" doing. 'What? No way! Cross my heart and wait till' I die, kid. I won't say a _word_ to her. Besides, I'm not likely to _see_ you again so it's not like there'd be any point in blackmail. It's just a couple of dice.'

'You're being very calm this,' Mana said again. Only this time, her voice had a tiny squeak to it. Figured. She really was just a kid who had the bad luck to be Bound to a bitch. There was nothing Devlin could do about that.

Delvin made himself smile again and shrug and not let on that his insides were quaking. 'I did all my yelling the first day you locked me in here. Now I'd like to think of my elf as _resigned with dignity_. I don't see much point in arguing and I've tried every way possible to get out of this room but your people really built it well. Right down to that unbreakable two way mirror you've got.'

He tilted his head in the direction of a wall which, to anyone else, looked like normal wooden panels. Mana seemed to shudder a little where she sat, as if surprised that he'd worked it out.

'I guess that's where you'll be watching this, huh?' Devlin said. 'All ready to step through and clear up the mess before the _Chosen O_ne can see what you did, just so you people could get them here.'

Mana looked straight down at the floor and didn't say anything at all. Devlin shrugged. 'You just do what your lady tells you, Mana. Better for you that you do that, right? What's wrong? Don't tell me you don't trust the girl you've been bound to since your birth?'

'Yes…' Mana said, and he could feel the "but" in her voice following, but didn't press her further. He know how far to push these things. After all, he'd been trained to do it. 'Then you just stick with what she tells you. Fool or not, she's probably just doing what she thinks is best, right? Life's a game of chance, you say? Then this could be my chance not to die. It's all a risk. Like the role of a dice,' he held the two die out in front of her face. 'Let's just see if luck is my lady.'

Mana stared at him for one long moment, her half transparent face hovering a mere few inches over his.

Mana. That silly little kid . He almost felt sorry for doing this.

Almost. Devlin smiled the most award winning smile he could conjure up at such short notice and really hoped this gamble was worth it.

After all, this wouldn't be the first time he staked his life on the roll of a dice.

* * *

**I know Téa is behaving extraordinarily out of character, but here's a reason and it's sure as heck not _"OMG she's been driven to evil by Yami and her friends' inevitable rejection of her! Wails!1!!!"_ or anything like that. It's okay, trust me, there's a decent explanation coming. The same can probably be said of Mana. No worries, I don't write OOC unless I have a pretty damn good reason. **


	3. Chapter 2: Light of the Machine

**Talk about your long and fiddly chapters. I hope this works though feel free to mention if it doesn't. I'm going to use it being late as my excuse, here. Standard disclaimers apply. **

* * *

Chapter Two: Light of the Machine.

The streets of Domino City were turning silver in light that came from nowhere in particular and everywhere at once.

Or at least that was how he'd always seen it. He'd heard that different people imagined the storms in different ways. Some people _felt_ them coming long before they saw them, others heard or even smelled the rising energy. Well once over Devlin had been able to taste it. So with that in mind, what he was seeing probably wasn't _real_ light at all. He'd heard something about that once: how human brain had a tendency to associate unknown sensations with whatever known ones it could closest match them to. So in this case, whatever it was that coated all of Domino in silver was just being _interpreted_ as light by his brain. He had no idea what it really was. All he knew was that it _changed_ things.

Just like it was changing them now. With him, trapped right in the middle of it.

The prison where they kept him sat opposite a row of buildings. Old fashioned ones with concrete walls and metal plating around the large glass windows close to ground level. The glass had been reinforced with planks of wood nailed across it –helpful in a riot, maybe, but they didn't exactly do much good when it came to stopping the Storms from getting in. Glass and metal were almost as susceptible to the storms as human skin and bone were, so having as much of it on the external walls of a building as possible kept most of the energy away from the inside. Most of it, but not all. Sometimes a badly sealed-up building could get you killed (or worse) pretty quickly.

A lot of people in Domino had badly sealed buildings. So a lot of people were worse than dead.

And then, of course, Devlin remembered, the room he was _locked_ in was pretty much _entirely_ metal. It was also just what they wanted, even if he didn't quite know why.

Wonderful.

Devlin turned around and glared at the mirror, hoping that Gardner could see it. And then he went back to the chair and sat down, the two dice clutched tightly, one in each hand. Somewhere in the street he could hear something that sounded like glass shattering.

* * *

The lights began flickering, at first. Then they died out altogether within a few seconds of the first tremor that always came just before the full impact of the storm. Right on cue, too. Ryou sometimes thought that perhaps it had been a bad idea for them to wire this entire building up with a supply of electricity instead of the more often used gas, since electricity had a tendency to fluctuate whenever a Storm came. On this occasion, though, the sudden darkness was welcomed. Even if Ryou, who had always hated the darkness?

He'd rehearsed it in his head countless times, but he'd never done it for real. Not with real cards in his hand, that he just couldn't seem to stop shuffling. He'd taught himself how to shuffle properly while working on the machine and now he kept doing it, barely stopping to pick out the right cards as he went.

'I still don't see how this is supposed to work,' Téa's comment was thoughtless and probably mostly to herself. Ryou answered it, anyway as he placed the first card face down carefully against a shelf that looked like glass.

'I don't think you're supposed to see how it works, Téa. You're just supposed to play.'

So he played. The second card being placed down carefully next to the first.

* * *

_'We haven't lost the duel yet, right?' _

_Jounouchi had disappeared for a couple of seconds trying to catch Tristan's darn dog before it met the main highway. By the looks of it, he'd had missed a good few turns in the process. Stupid mutt. _

_'Of course we haven't, Jounouchi,' Anzu smiled. She was still sat there on the edge of her seat, with her hands curled lightly into fists. 'It's never over _this_ easily.' _

_'Easy?' Jounouchi blinked, trying and failing to steal a fry from the boy in front of him. 'Aren't they both down to just two cards each here?' _

_'Exactly what I meant. Easy. Still two cards to play and anything can happen.' _

* * *

'I don't get this. Electricity is out, how is it supposed to work without power?'

Another question Ryou knew he wasn't expected to answer, and this time he didn't have an explanation handy anyway. He couldn't explain what was happening; he was just doing what the books and journals told him to do. That was, after all, how he had put this whole machine together. One piece after another over five years or more, without even knowing what he was doing.

It seemed to work, and when he glanced through the two way mirror, he could see the effects, right through the window in Devlin's room. One of the buildings across the street was changing already. It was probably badly sealed or else it wouldn't have reacted so quickly. The storm wasn't even on them yet, and he could already see the concrete cracking. The light was blinding across the rest of the stone, but darkness formed where the cracks were created, digging into the stone and metal. He could see the inside of the glass melting white hot from across the street.

* * *

_'Yeah. Sure.' _

_She was right. Sure she was right. After all, this was Yuugi they were talking about and he always found a way to come back from a bad situation. And this hardly even qualified as _bad_, so much as little on the irritating side. (They sure as hell hadn't asked Ryuuzaki to follow them down the pier). _

_All they had to do was sit, wait and keep on cheering now and then. Which was just as well, because Jounouchi's stomach had been telling him it was ready for food for going on half an hour now_ _and it was never good to ignore a demand like that. _

_'Uh… can we deal with this one quick, Yuug'? Only I'm getting hungry here.' _

_Anzu's eyes rolled. 'Oh, Jounouchi, you and your stomach!' _

* * *

Just above the spindles attached to the top of the card container on the machine was a display. Ryou had guessed from all the wiring and electrical cables he'd seen while putting it together that it was probably digital, and now he was being proven right, as the red-displayed numbers on the dial whirred into life and began to climb upwards, from five hundred, to a thousand, to two thousand, to three… The whole thing looked newer that it probably was –like the engine of some huge, complicated vehicle– and when the numbers flashed across the screen, they confirmed this all the more.

They also kind of messed with the theory of there not being any power.

Mana appeared through the doorway just then, drifting through without needing to open it. Téa felt an ethereal touch against her bare shoulder and Mana pausing in uncertainty.

'Mistress I… the lights are out. How—'

Mana never finished her question before being distracted by the light of the machine.

'The storms…' Ryou looked up at Téa before casting a glance back into the room beyond the one-way-mirror. 'Of course, that's where it gets its power, just like we expected. All it needs…'

'Is a human. Right.' Téa swallowed and tried not to let herself believe how much that idea chilled her.

* * *

_The Dark Magician Girl looked back at him, and winked. _

_This wasn't unusual behaviour for a lot of the cards in his deck, though he rarely, if ever saw it happen in the decks of others. The Spirit said that Dark Magician Girl saved her attention for those who were worthy. Yuugi, however, thought it was probably also something to do with the spirit of the duellist. After all if the Heart of the Cards came was originally born within the heart of their duellist, it shouldn't be odd to think that the cards might behave and respond on the field in ways their owners wanted them too. _

_And Yuugi liked it when the Dark Magician Girl smiled. _

_Other cards just liked to be noticed. Kuriboh had always been that way. It vied for his attention now, bouncing up and down on the field and glaring at the opponent's Twin Headed Rex for all it was worth. _

* * *

He could feel the storms coming now, turning the air as thick as lead and draining the colour out of everything he could still see in the street outside. The glaring "light" passed over the buildings and faded away, and when it'd gone, the buildings were just… _different_. The stone of one had aged about a hundred years and decayed away completely.

And the room he was in… that was changing, too. He watched the pile of fake books being torn upwards in a wind that sent them flying. And then they were gone altogether, reappearing again when they slammed heavily down around the room, like they were made out of something ten times heavier than they had been when the winds first picked them up.

He'd only felt this once before. If he'd been asked to, he couldn't have described it. You didn't always feel the storms coming and usually, by the time they were close enough for you to make out what was happening, it was too late. Their energy had already gotten inside your head, scrambled your thoughts and messed with your nerves. Devlin tried his best not to think about that, clinging to the chair and the dice in his hand for all he was worth and trying to keep his eyes wide open.

And then, whatever the hell it was that that had been wired into the room he was sitting in kicked into play.

Light was shining in patterns through the walls; as if just below the surface of them a thousand wires were glowing with the storm light. The glowing wires snaked through the whole of the room in which he sat. It was like a conduit or some kind of circuit. And Devlin was a part of it. The storm power was running through him like a battery. At first it felt like nothing more than the same, vaguely familiar tickle he had felt the night the storms had stolen his sense of taste. But then it changed – the feeling grew stronger and pins and needles bolted up his spine like they'd been shot at him from a gun.

Devlin clutched the dice that little bit tighter and waited for the actually pain.

_**

* * *

**_

'What's he doing?'

'Sitting.'

Téa blinked at Ryou's answer. 'What? Is that it?'

'That's all. Just sitting. Looking a little nervous, though honestly I can't say I blame him.'

'Maybe he's resigned himself to the fact there's nothing he can do… there would be nothing _we_ could do now either, Téa, even if we wanted to. If we were to open that doorway now we'd probably be caught inside the Storm Flux. Who knows what would happen if we interfered.'

Téa reached for Mana's hand –an instinctive reaction, more than anything else, just like she had reached for her when she was a child– and clung to it for all she was worth. (Just one of the advantages of having another personality who was physical and tangible only to you.) Even though later she would strenuously deny doing so.

She caught Ryou glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, his faint shimmering softly in the growing, spinning light of the machine's spindles. 'I think… it would be safe to say we might have gotten this right, Téa.'

* * *

_'Hey! Get that freakin' hairball to cool off already, Muto. Or else I'll burn _him_ to cinders first.' _

_Yuugi felt a smile that wasn't really his own glimpse across his face._**'Typical.'**

_'If that's your plan then I'd get moving, Rex. The duel's almost over.' _

_Kuriboh knew that too, from the looks of it. It had also figured out that it was going to be important today and few things gave it more reason to act up on the playing field more than that. Yuugi wasn't sure how odd it was, to place so much personification on the cards, but in truth, he hardly cared. They fought for him and he for them. That was all that mattered. _

_That was something Ryuuzaki couldn't even begin to understand. _

_'Damn fuzz ball. Maybe if it's lucky it'll choke my twin Headed King Rex while it's making Dino chow outta it, cause that's the only way you're gonna win this with that flea-bitten excuse for a junk card.' _

* * *

She'd always thought of it as being like a tape recorder rewinding, magnified a thousand times and overlaid with static. Then ran through a blender until it started screaming. Which made absolutely no sense at all, she thought, but it was the only way she could describe how the Storms always sounded in her ears. Even when she was inside of a building and protected from the worst of it.

The whole room felt like it was shuddering now –another symptom of the storm, and Téa found herself glancing out of the mirror. Looking straight at Devlin, still sat in the chair. Only he didn't look nearly as relaxed as he had been before, when Téa had been sitting in the room with him.

Funny, then, how Ryou always seemed to hear nothing at all. He wouldn't even block his ears.

She hadn't been this close to a Storm in a long time. If they hadn't been this desperate she would never have imagined attempting this.

But desperate… that was exactly what Téa Gardner was. Desperate to find a way out of the mess she'd had to live with all her life. And if the answer to reading those old diaries and building this machine. In finding just _one_ person in all of time who knew how to bring it all to an end…

'… Chosen One.'

Téa didn't know when she'd started believing in that kind of nonsense. She had no idea when she'd first started to say the words "Chosen One" without adding a sceptical "hah!" on the end. She'd grown so used to hiding from the storms, running from them and fearing their every twist and turn, and yet now here they were, just normal human beings messing with forces they hardly understood –trying to actually _control_ it, of all things…

It shouldn't have worked.

It couldn't _possibly_ work.

But if this was a failing, then it was a damn impressive one.

She saw the machine between them shimmering and the surface of the cards glisten where Ryou had laid them. She saw the spindle-like objects just above those cards begin to rotate, slowly and surely and watch that glow spreading through the wires of the room. And she held her breath as Ryou laid the third and final card face down against the plating.

The light increased.

* * *

_Still… just two cards left. That was all he had. And neither one of them was a monster card. He had just one magic and one trap. He had to count on Dark Magician Girl not dying, and that meant hoping his opponent used effects and not attacks. And it _was_ Ryuuzaki he was facing, so that wasn't likely. _

'Its okay, other me. We'll be fine. We still haven't lost…'

* * *

His name was Duke. Duke Devlin, if you wanted to get personal, but people never called him by his first name, anyway. He was born in this city eighteen years ago and he'd never left it, not even once, (because nobody in Domino had ever seen beyond the city. That just wasn't how things worked). He never knew his father's name and knew nothing whatsoever about his mother, but neither of those things were important, because neither of them had cared enough to look after him when he was a kid anyway.

He had all but brought himself up, good to his father only as a subject into which to drill lessons. Lessons about tactics and logic and game strategy. Lessons about scheming and manipulating and how to avoid losing at all costs. Lessons of how to be a businessman and a survivor. Hour after hour day after day. By the time he was nine, little Duke Devlin was making up games that out his father to shame and dicing with his life the same way he diced with every game you put in front of him. Duke Devlin was the king of games.

His father hadn't _loved_ him, but he'd taught _Duke_ how to live with this world and he's taught _Devlin_ how to fight with words and how he shouldn't trust a single damn soul. So when his father lost the last bit of sanity he had and blew himself to pieces in the middle of a storm, Devlin had been more than happy to take over the store and run it better than his father ever had. He'd done well for years and not even cared about snorting remarks he got for not being bound to anything but himself. Devlin had never cared squat about all that. He'd never _wanted_ to be stuck with another "being" feeding off of him like a parasite. He was good enough on his own. He'd _always_ been good enough.

These were the things Devlin thought about. The things he tried to hang onto as he felt the first of the Storm's "light" rays hit. He knew these things were important. These things were _who_ he was and _what_ he was and any second now all that could change. He could open his eyes and discover he was blind, he could forget every lesson his father taught him, he could wake up without something and now know how he ever **_had_** it, just like when the storm had stolen his taste.

_'Uh-huh,' _said a little voice in Duke's head that he liked to call "father", even though it wasn't. _'Except this isn't _like_ all those other storms _is it_, idiot? This isn't like the other storms at all.'_

Annoying as it was, the little voice was right. This wasn't just feeling the _touch_ of the storm or having it brush against him on a rooftop. This was more than that, this was…

…Channelling?

Yeah. Channelling. That was probably the word he was looking for. The room he was in was like some giant conductor, forcing Storm Magic right through his flesh and bone. And along with it, that familiar tugging sensation tightened on his chest, as if something inside him was being ripped out through his ribcage.

No going back now. But he _hadn't_ lost yet. Not so long as he _remembered_.

So he just kept telling himself that he was Duke Devlin and reminding himself of the dice he still held clenched in one hand –he couldn't forget those, no matter how hard it got. He couldn't afford to forget what was happening because that meant he could lose his last chance of getting out of this alive. The storms could make him do that. They could overpower him so completely that he forgot everything and everyone. That was why he had to remember. He had to keep talking to himself inside of his head.

But then what was the point of that? He wasn't going to survive this anyway. He'd told himself otherwise right up until now, but now that the pain had started, he was actually starting to believe it.

Devlin heard the popping and crackling of the metal gauze in the windows, but at first, that was virtually _all_ he felt. The rest of the power passed invisibly through the walls, covering everything in a transparent sheen and stabbing into his brain like needles.

* * *

_Yuugi sighed and bit down on his lip a little more visible than he had meant to. Okay, so he didn't have The Other Yuugi's Duelling-Poker-Face, but he'd imagined he could have at _least_ led Ryuuzaki on long enough to be able to play the combo he needed. Just typical. _

'Had to be the Twin Headed Rex he still had on the field, didn't it? And I thought I only needed a power boost of five hundred points. Looks like we'll have to do this the old fashioned way, The Other Me.'

**'You're sure you're not using Joey's deck?' **

_Yuugi managed not to laugh_. 'What makes you say that?'

**'Too many dice and luck rolls, aibou. Before now, I saw Chosen One. And Roll of Fate. What's with all the dice? It's not usually your way of playing.' **

_Yuugi lays his next card on the plate without a word and with nothing left on the field to protect it. Except for Dark Magician Girl _'I felt like taking some chances today.'

**'Against Ryuuzaki.' **

'Just for fun, right?'

**'Not if you're him.' **

'Don't worry, Other me. I won't lose.'

_The Other Yuugi's chuckle tickled in his mind. _**'I have no doubt…'**

* * *

Definitely going to die here. No way in hell was he going to…

No.

Devlin forced himself to stop that train of thought, even though it was probably the hardest thing he'd ever done. It was almost as if his body wasn't his own anymore and his flesh were being burned away. A choking sensation was building in his lungs.

He made himself peel his fingers away from the arm of the chair he was sitting on (was he still sitting there? it was so hard to tell…) and cross his fingers.

* * *

It was so _bright_ out there.

Téa took a large step backwards away from the mirror and could see Mana shifting quickly in front of her, knowing she'd go blind herself before allowing Téa to. Ryou seemed to sense what she was trying to do, though, as well as how utterly pointless sit was. If things were to go wrong at this late stage, then going blind would be the least of Téa's problems.

'Mana, it's alright, t-the windows are shielded,' Ryou managed to stammer out, clutching the rest of the card deck tightly, brown eyes fixed firmly on the two-way mirror and on the figure of Devlin, still visible through it. The walls around him seemed to be coated with powerful little sapphire glimmers, and now, these glimmers had spread right over Devlin's body, as if he was covered with the same burning wires as the metal walls around him. 'Oh my…'

Téa had never known Ryou's standard phrase of shock to be used so _aptly_ before. The sound of an over-loud tape recorder throbbed in her ears as the machine behind her continued to pulse. The spindle-like parts that were connected to the glass plate began to spin faster, as if it was sucking in the energy from the now bright blue, glowing cards.

Of course, that was _exactly_ what they were doing. Téa understood now, how the machine was working –it was drawing in the power of the duel cards Ryou had lain down and turning that power back into the room.

And it was actually _working_, just as the journals had said it would work. The power of the storm was leaking into the room next door and feeding on all of the metal surfaces within, and then, that energy was blending with that of the machine, which in turn was drawing its power from the duel cards and spitting it back into the room. There, it did what the power of all cards did –it was drawn immediately to the closest source of human spirit it could find.

Which just happened to be Duke Devlin.

Téa felt Mana clutch her shoulder a little bit tighter, watching Devlin's body jerk. The light wasn't so much white now, as blue, running across his face and neck and shining out from beneath his shirt. If she hadn't known better, Téa would have thought he was crying. But… no. This was _Devlin_, so he couldn't be. It had to be a trick of the light. His whole _body_ looked like it was crying right now –crying blue and silver power.

And then, she saw Devlin slowly raise a hand and caught a glimpse of something clutched between his fingers. She paused for a moment, feeling confused. Surely they had taken all of his possessions the second they put him in that room?

But no, he was _definitely_ holding something. Through the glare, she could barely make it out, held between his three main fingers

Téa's eyes narrowed in confusion. 'Wait, Mana, where did he _get_ those…'

* * *

_'…Dice? Are you freaking kidding me? Don't tell me you're basing this on luck?' _

_From the look on his opponent's face, Yuugi felt he should've just lost a winning lottery ticket. _

_'Okay, I won't tell you, Ryuuzaki. I end your turn now and roll the Dice of Fate. You know what happens if I get the score I want. All your attacks are instantly negated, and that leaves you open for a head-on attack.' _

_Ryuuzaki was snorting loudly in derision, as if he couldn't seriously believe the move that Yuugi was making. But Yuugi didn't react to that. This strategy he had just might work if he could just pull it off. And that all depended entirely on luck. _

_Which really _was_ more Jounouchi's department, but… _

_He cast a glance in the direction of his friends, drawing of a brief glimmer of support from them before activating the effect of the Roll of Fate card he'd just turned over on the field. _

_And then, Yuugi felt a stab of pain, ripping through his stomach. _

* * *

Somewhere deep inside of Duke Devlin's increasingly pain-obsessed mind, something clicked.

By now, he wasn't entirely sure exactly where his _body_ was, never mind what the storms were doing to it. But somehow, even barely knowing what was going on, he still managed to let the two dice Mana had given him back drop from his fingers. He heard them connecting with the floor and rattling as they fell into their final positions, and then, deep inside, Duke Devlin felt something else.

It was like for just one single second, a door had opened somewhere in reality and Devlin was looking right into it. And okay, so he had never actually believed in that kind of stuff, but now it was pretty difficult to ignore. It felt so _strong_. Even stronger than the storm currently rattling in his ears and doing hell knew what with his sense of perception.

At the very second the dice fell from his fingers, somewhere across time and space, somebody else was also rolling a dice.

And the number it landed on was lower than Devlin's.

_'…Score.' _

* * *

Téa saw it happen, but at first, she didn't quite register what was doing. By the time she'd realised it was much too late. 'What in the name of… Ryou he has a _dice_!'

Téa found herself whirling one-hundred and eighty degrees to face a slightly confused looking Ryou. The machine, for its part, continued to pulse blue silver, as if it were oblivious to the chaos. '…No! He must be going to—'

'Screw with the game!' Téa finished in an almost-scream. 'For god's sakes, don't let him!'

* * *

_He only stopped breathing for about twenty seconds, but that was obviously more than enough. _

_The remaining card dropped out of his hand. His duel disk seemed to sputter with electricity, the Dark Magician Girl and Kuriboh flickered suddenly from view and Anzu leapt up fro where she'd been sitting but Yuugi couldn't really make much sense out of any of this. One minute he'd been rolling a dice, the next… _

_'Yuugi? Yuugi, look at me!' _

_Yuugi tried. It didn't work out very well, though, because he had no idea who was talking or who he was supposed to be looking at. He was more concerned with the sudden tugging sensation currently ripping at his stomach. Something felt like it was tugging on him. Like the hand he used to play Roll of Fate had being grabbed and was being _pulled_ on so hard, it was like his arm's going to be ripped from it's socket if Jounouchi didn't let go of his other arm and… _

_'Man, check it out. Who thought the King Rex was _that_ scary.' _

_'Ah, shut the hell up, Ryuuzaki before I—' _

_'Or what? You'll set the king of games on me? He completely just _passed out_.' _

_He could hear Ryuuzaki laughing, but somehow, it wasn't the same laugh as it usually was. It was less… cocky. More on edge. But then again, Yuugi didn't really _care_ that much about Ryuuzaki, all of a sudden. _

_…Wait, Jounouchi was just sitting over _there_, so how was he now… _

_'Whoa, guys check out the _sand_! Freaky, man.' _

_'W-what's happening? Yuugi?' _

_Yuugi wished he could answer, but he honestly didn't have the foggiest how to. He couldn't… _

_He couldn't even _see_ anymore. And his hearing wasn't too great either. All he could make out of his friends voices was a throbbing hum, overlaid with an endless clattering, like a million dice being rolled all at once. _

_He couldn't even seem to talk _mentally_ rig**ht now, so when he heard the Other Him uttering a worried, **_**'Yuugi? What is it?'**_ it was all he could really do to keep breathing. Answering was totally out of the question. It was like the whole world had been pulled out of joint. One page ripped away to reveal something strange and dark underneath.__The world was opening up to swallow him, and it was probably going to take everyone else with him._

_'No! Jounouchi, don't let him go!' _

_'I'm trying, I'm trying!' _

**'Yuugi, our friends are—' **

_'_Yuugi_! Snap out of it!' _

_Only Yuugi didn't know what he was trying to snap out _of_. He looked up, and saw that it wasn't so black anymore. He could actually make out the shapes and figures of who he supposed must be his friends (one of whom had their hands on his shoulders and was obviously struggling to keep him upright) and he could see the hissing smoke of his bust duel disk though God only knew how it'd been broken in the first place. And then behind the crowd of people, in the sky above the pier… _

_The last thing Yuugi heard was Jounouchi, catching his breath in a nervous groan. _

_'Oh, man, not the freaking _portal_ again!' _

_And then, as they say, the world dissapeared. _

* * *

**Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **


	4. Chapter 3: Spitting Images

**Another long one this, and not my best.. but seriously, I'll attept to improve it it's merely far too late for me to be doing this. Standard disclaimers apply.**

* * *

Chapter Three: Spitting Images.

As the streets began to calm down once again and the buildings stopped rattling from the pressure of the storm, Mai Valentine emerged from the darkness of the doorway in which she had been hiding, and was relieved to find she still, apparently, possessed all her organs and various faculties.

She knew it was mostly a myth of course, that when you were out in a storm your organs were the first thing to go. Actually that rarely happened to humans. More often they would lose their senses, or suddenly find they were using the opposite hand, or age a few decades in the blink of an eye, or their bodies would crystallise and suffocate them where they stood. Losing organs was actually fairly rare, but for some reason, it was a storm defect that people seemed to fear the most. Even more than crystal suffocation.

Valentine leaned back against the wall and breathed out heavily, being careful not to let that breath turn out sounding too much like a sigh of relief. 'Well I imagine you felt that, didn't you?'

The Other Valentine appeared at her call, drifting out from where she had been hiding just inside of the wall, Valentine scowled at the haphazard grin on her face. 'Gods, you know, you have such a talent for making a face like mine look ridiculously ugly. Stop _grinning_ like that.'

'What mistress says goes, mistress Mai. Other Mai will do as she says.' The Other Valentine let the smile drop away from its mouth, but its eyes kept shining mockingly as they looked at her master. Deep mahogany hair and eyes contrasted with Valentine's blonde and blue eyed gaze. Valentine had long ago decided that she honestly didn't _suit_ brunette. Especially not when you matched it with a foolish expression like that. 'What you say there, little lady mistress? Methinks I lost my hearing there. Just like the freak boy they brought in.'

'As it happens he wasn't deaf,' Valentine sighed, kneading her arms. Storms _always_ tended to dry her skin out when she was too close to the outside. 'He just had the sense to ignore you. So tell me, Other Me: any idea how well our dear superiors succeeded?'

'Who knows, who knows?' the Other Valentine pirouetted in the air, face tilted upwards at the tallest windows of the building they stood in front of. 'Have to hope now, won't we then?'

Valentine turned and gazed up at the building. That was absolutely last time she volunteered to stand outside during a Storm, no matter how much she had to prove her loyalty to the company, it just wasn't worth risking her organs. But she had felt something different tonight, as well. Something had happened inside of this building which had nothing – and yet everything – to do with the storms. She felt it, and she was itching to find out what that feeling meant.

'Chosen one,' the suddenly small voice of the Other Valentine (she had always refused point blank to call it _The Other Mai_) muttered besides her. 'Huh. Little wishes for little brains. I felt the building shake and quake though. Felt it rumble and saw the lights. Silver, just like the storms outside,' she paused; licking her lips in what was almost excitement. 'I'm thinking they got _something_ little mistress, even if it was just a headache.'

'Here's hoping,' Valentine muttered, picking across the gravel in high heeled boots. 'Because being so close to that damn thing is going to give _me_ the headache of a lifetime. In a couple of hours I'll be unbearable to work with, just you wait.'

'Oh I will Mistress, I will. But do you mind me running away when it happens?'

'By all means, run as _far _as you can.'

'Oh, Other Mai will run all the way to the edge of the world, mistress, don't you worry about that.'

Valentine privately wished the edge of the world wasn't as near as it actually was. She stepped out of the doorway where they stood, carefully brushing down her dress and shaking off the last shivers of cold the Storm had left in her spine –a small reminder of its little visit. 'You know the last time I asked you to shut up? Why didn't you _listen_ to me then?' She finished brushing down her clothing. 'Next time let's not be quite so sacrificial with where we choose to base our guards, hm? We should've chosen a spot closer to the inside rooms anyway. We're not much good all the way out here.'

'But wasn't that the point, mistress?' the Other Valentine blinked her large brown eyes. '_Keep away from the room_, that's what he said, that's what _we_ were told to do. Don't attract attention or suspicion, don't let slip that there are any connections. Very important we don't do that, isn't it?'

'I suppose,' Valentine muttered, not feeling entirely convinced. Truth be told she was fed up with taking orders. While moving up in rank within the Corporation gave her a strange sense of inner satisfaction (not to mention an impressive pay check) she was starting to think it wasn't worth all these _risks_. Not to mention that storms that caught you tended to work in patterns, so next time she would probably lose her fingers. (Ironic fate would most likely make it the fingers on her _right_ hand, too.)

Other Valentine suddenly started blinking. 'Ah...'

'"_Ah_" what?'

'Ah -a superior calls you, mistress. It's Mana. Téa-pretty's guardian.'

'Really?' Valentine's eyes narrowed in interest.

'Sounds like her. Feels like her. Think it could be a wrong number?'

'Very funny. Well isn't _that_ high up the scale, then? A call from the little lady herself. I wonder if she's planning to reward us for risking our lives in the name of this little experiment.'

Other Valentine snorted. 'Rats might fly.'

'In this world? They well might, illusion. She began to walk out of the small alleyway between their building and the next. Whatever the case, they'd fulfilled their tasks now. Doubtless, she assumed, they'd see something interesting.

She'd assumed right. Valentine paused on the street taking in its new variations. The air out here was a good few degrees colder than she had remembered it being before. A building on the other side of the road appeared to have aged a good few decades (or maybe gotten a few decades younger, it was hard to tell from the ruins that were left). The windows of the one besides it were melting away in liquid puddles. A small, white rat (which probably hadn't been white ten minutes ago) ran hysterically across the street. As Mai got closer she could see why –its small eyes had sealed up completely as if they'd never existed. Poor wretch. She watching as it collided with the curb and skittered blindly along the road in front of her until it toppled into a drain cover. The Other Valentine sniggered.

Other than these few differences, the street looked relatively the same as before, so the storm couldn't have been such a bad one. Though there was probably the odd thing here and there which she hadn't noticed beforehand and wasn't likely to notice now, unless a gas main had been ruptured or something. Valentine could hear the distant sound of rumbling coming from near the centre of the city, so that probably _had_ happened somewhere.

That was when she remembered that there had been another Watcher out on the street with her. Valentine had presumed she made for the nearby bio-plastic shelter sitting on the other side of the street but now that she looked, that shelter appeared empty. There was no sign of her fellow Watcher. Valentine glanced around in search of her for a moment.

'Missing someone?' Other Valentine asked, uninterestedly.

'Hm. Yeah. She was guarding out here with us but she's gone now.'

'Maybe the storms picked her up and killed her.'

'No. This storm wasn't strong enough for that. Maybe she just chickened and went back inside.'

'Heh. Her funeral.'

'Yes. Not ours, though, right? After all, I'm the brave, strong guard why stayed on the streets throughout the whole storm,' valentine allowed herself a small smirk. 'Or at least that's what _we're_ going to tell them. Come on, let's go inside already.' The Other Valentine shrugged before following her, continuing to chuckle mildly, though Valentine didn't ask what her Other found so funny. It was probably still laughing about the rat.

It could've been a million times worse, Valentine figured. Some days it _was_ a million times worse.

Valentine sighed and made for the door, hoping the storms hadn't changed the lock's combination code. And then she felt herself pause for a moment, biting her lip in what she supposed was an uncharacteristic moment of uncertainty. 'You think… he's alright?'

'Ach, ach,' the Other Valentine snorted impatiently. 'Let the boy take care of himself. Don't ask me about _him_, woman. I'm just your little illusion, aren't I? Not my job to wonder on these things.'

'Hm. Sometimes _I_ wonder though.' Valentine reached out a hand to tap in her key code for the large metal door in front of the building.

Then, as she reached down to take the handle, the Other Valentine snorted with laughter. Valentine scowled at it impatiently. 'What? What exactly is so funny _this_ time?'

The Other Valentine grinned and pointed a long finger with a black painted nail (perhaps her only bodily decoration, unlike the usual Mai Valentine, the other Valentine never wore make up of any sort.) 'Oh, you haven't noticed? Little mistress is using the wrong hand.'

Valentine looked down, clenching and unclenching the fingers of her suddenly unusually strong right hand and felt the pit dropping out of her stomach. She had _thought_ she felt threads of storm energy brushing against her exposed calf, but she had convinced herself she was imagining it out of fear and Storm-Confusion. 'Oh… Oh, _crap_. Don't tell me…'

'Ah well, at least mistress is no longer a minority in _one way_,' the Other Valentine sniggered uncontrollably. 'Now she uses her _right_ hand, eh? Just like _everybody_ else.'

Valentine sighed in annoyance. Apparently she hadn't imagined anything.

'Oh, shut _up_, you damned illusion.' She continued to clench and unclench her fingers for a moment, then began to do the same with her other hand. The muscles were weak and uncontrolled. Her hand-eye coordination had literally turned upside down. 'Gods _damn it_, this could be annoying. I duel with my goddamned _left hand first_! If I have to _relearn_ how to pick all of those freaking locks with _this_ hand, it's going to be _your_ problem as much as mine.'

'Who needs locks and picking, mistress?' The Other Valentine continued to grin as Valentine dragged the front door open. 'I can just go through the walls…'

'Yeah and I wish you'd go ahead and get _stuck in one_. Come _on_, I'll… deal with this mess later.'

* * *

His head _hurt_.

That was the first thing he noticed. The second thing was that, when he opened his eyes, the world around him remained pitch black.

He didn't mind this so much, actually. The dark silence gave him a few quiet moments in which to get used to the feeling of having his body back. Because for a moment there (had it really been just a moment? It felt like so much longer…) he could've sworn he hadn't been connected to it. It had kind of resembled the feeling he got when performing a Mind Shuffle with his Other Self, at _just_ the point at which he wasn't connected to either his inner soul room or his body and was momentarily floating in nothing.

Except that this time he'd been _ripped_ into the nothingness under duress, rather than gone of his own accord, and the Other Him hadn't been able to pull him back again.

'_So is _that_ what just happened? Was I mind shuffling and got… stuck outside my body, or something_?' He didn't _remember_ needing to Mind Shuffle (then again, he couldn't remember _much_). Nothing like this had ever happened before and it was a pretty frightening thought.

Yuugi managed to reach one arm up and feel for the puzzle around his neck, relieved when his fingers touched slightly warm metal. And then he realised that maybe, the only reason it felt so warm was because he was so _cold_ in comparison. He could already feel himself trembling. _Shock, maybe? _

He was just considering accessing the mind link, but the Other Him must have sensed a return of consciousness because he beat him to it, pushing at his mind before Yuugi could so much as mentally tap at his soul door.

**_'Aibou?'_**

_'Mm. it's me.' _

There was a moment of silence and a strange sensation rose in Yuugi's chest, as if somebody was sighing.It wasn't actually really breathing _per se_, but that was what he had always called it whenever he sensed movement from the other soul sharing his body. A small reminder of another life sharing the body he lived in.**_ 'Thank the gods… Are you alright?'_**

_'Ngh. Good question. Other Me, I… where are we _this_ time?' _

Yugi felt another breathing sensation, controlled and even in his lungs, so much so that he almost mistook it for his own breath. It was a fairly comforting feeling. **_'I don't know. It's difficult to see.' _**

'Ah. Least I'm not the only one with that problem.'

The Other Yuugi's voice changed slightly then, from concerned relief to annoyance. **_'What's going on, Aibou? Everything is…' _**

_'Everything is what, Other Me?'_

It took another moment for the Other Him to supply an answer. **_'…Dark, but… But I'm not speaking of the blackness.' _**There was another moment of silence.****Yuugi frowned, concerned for him, in spite of their circumstances. He carefully rubbed the knuckles on his right hand, making certain nothing else hurt. **_'Yes. It's dark magic. Dark magic everywhere. It's like the air is saturated with it. Where did it come from?' _**

Yuugi couldn't answer that… still, such dark magic could only be a bad thing. 'I don't know… but, just sit tight, Other Me. We'll work out what's happening, okay?'

The Other Yuugi didn't answer. This was worrying in and of itself. He genuinely seemed to be dwelling on the thought of darkness all around them, but Yuugi couldn't feel anything like that. He was becoming more aware, now, of the sounds of other people breathing in the darkness. Wherever they were it was definitely _somewhere_ and they definitely weren't alone. These were also very comforting thoughts, though he supposed it depended on who the others with him _were_. He tried to lie as still as he could so as to pick more out of the darkness. If he couldn't _see_ where they were, he thought, then he might as well _listen_ instead.

That was when he noticed that his left hand was wrapped around something just to his side, and after a couple of moments the thing shifted and muttered under its breath, something which sounded vaguely like a curse. 'Mgh… whatthe?Gah…damnit… Where'sthefire,man?'

**_'Sounds like Jounouchi,' _**the Other Yuugi commented, sounding ever so slightly amused.

'Mgh… Y-Yugi? Isszat you?' Yugi started at the sound of a voice which didn't come from himself or inside of the puzzle around his neck, but then relaxed a little bit as he realised who it actually belonged to. It felt like the first human voice he'd heard in forever, though really, it couldn't possibly have been _that_ long.

'Mm.'

'Take that as a yes, right?'

'Y-yeah. It's me, Jounouchi-kun,' Yuugi whispered. 'Are you alright?'

'…Meh.' It wasn't much of an answer but at least it _was_ one. The form (apparently it was Jounouchi's arm that Yuugi was hanging onto) moved again and Yuugi felt the pressure change as Jounouchi sat upright and then groaned loudly. 'Urgh. Man, here: a word of advice to ya. Don't do that.'

'Don't do what?' Yuugi frowned.

'You know,' Jounouchi muttered groggily. 'That… that thing, what I just did.'

'You mean, sit up?' Yuugi asked.

'Yeah. That thing. Bad idea, man.'

**_'Better do as he says, Yuugi, he seems to know what he's talking about,' _**the other Yuugi said evenly. Yuugi felt a smile tweak his lips despite the stabbing pain in his skull that assaulted him when he did so. Another positive: who he was with was Jounouchi and the Other Him, surely wherever they were –however dark and filled with black magic it was or how much pain they were still in– it couldn't possibly be all _that_ bad, so long as they were together.

'Man, my head feels like it's been put through a grinder. Where are we? One minute we were…' Jounouchi paused. 'Uh… Yuugi, what _were_ we doing one minute ago?'

'Um… duelling,' Yuugi blinked repeatedly, suddenly realising that he was having ass hard a job recalling as Jounouchi was. 'I was duelling someone. I _think_. It was my turn and…'

'Yeah? Duelling who? Me?'

'Um, no,' Yuugi screwed up his eyes trying to remember, but the details were faded in his minds. 'I just remember everything freezing and going black. And then this. That's all I've really got so far.' He reached an arm in front of his face, despite the fact that he still couldn't actually see it. Then he patted nervously at where he figured his pockets were. 'My duel disk is gone… so are my cards.' A chill suddenly ran down his spine at the thought of being separated from their deck. 'It's like everything but us has just… vanished.'

'What, so you think we're dead?' Jounouchi's voice sharpened a little nervously. 'Man, no way, seriously? Is this it? Have we crossed the great divide and… Urgh. darnit, my _head_.' Yuugi couldn't see Jounouchi grimacing, but he could imagine it well enough and tightened his grip on Jounouchi's arm in what was meant to be comfort. 'O-okay man, scratch that. I'm pretty sure bein' dead doesn't to hurt this much… or taste like you've got sandpaper on your tongue. Then again, you're the one with more experience so you tell me.'

'It doesn't feel like this, Jounouchi,' Yuugi smiled a little, feeling Jounouchi's hand removing his own and for just a second gripping Yuugi's fingers. 'Man, you're _freezing_. What the hell happened?'

**_'He already asked us that,'_ **the Other Yuugi commented.

_'Mm. Do we have an answer, yet?' _

**_'Unfortunately, no. Be careful, Yuugi. The shadows are everywhere. I can feel them, and without our deck…' _**A soft hiss echoed inside of Yuugi's mind. **_'I do _not_ like this.'_**

'I'll take your silence as a no,' Jounouchi sighed. 'Wonderful. So here we go again –either the world's ended or it's just about to, _we're_ probably stuck in the middle of it, and I betcha money that the creepy, evil cackling is gonna start up any _second_ now and start challenging you to a duel. Figures. It _always_ happens that way.'

Yuugi smiled, but his attempted response was interrupted by a soft whimpering sound a few feet to his right. The voice he heard was lethargic and familiar from childhood sleepovers. Mostly the ones where certain children who-would-remain-nameless woke up in tears from sugar-induced nightmares. 'Mm. Yuugi?'

'Anzu, is that you? Are you okay?'

There was a moment of shuffling and Yuugi guessed that Anzu was letting her eyes become accustomed to the darkness and her head to its aching. 'I… yeah. I think so. My head is like a _jack hammer_, though.'

'Join the club, girl,' Jounouchi groaned. 'I think we just had a near-death-experience. Not _total_ death experience, though, I figure. Don't worry. It could've just been a trip through the space-time continuum. Or maybe a minor bomb blast, or something. Whatever it was—' he grunted, shifting himself across the floor. Yuugi could feel him patting around vaguely in search of Anzu. '—Ah, there ya are!— I'm pretty sure it let us live.'

'Um… yeah. Thanks Jounouchi,' Anzu murmured dryly. 'That's really encouraging to know. Now remove your hand from there _right_ now, before I—'

Anzu's breath suddenly caught at the same time as Jounouchi's shadow seemed to back pedal hurriedly to where he'd been sitting before. 'Wait, Honda!'

'Is right… ngh… here, Anzu,' Honda's voice said. Only to Yuugi's ears, it sounded more like "Izzz rught nugh hur nzuu" seeing as it was exceptionally muffled. Yuugi's eyes were beginning to adjust well enough to the darkness for him to make out where everyone was from his current position. For example: there was a rather large, muffled shape nearby, not too far from Jounouchi's shadow, buried beneath a smaller, more feminine figure, which Yuugi guessed was probably Anzu. There was a sudden sharp movement as Anzu shifted herself from Honda's back.

'Oh! Sorry…'

'Mgh. Don't mention it. _Ow_. Damn it, that hurts…'

'Lemme guess, Honda. Your head?'

'Ngh. Actually, I just think Anzu there was crushing half of my internal organs. But now that you mention it –yeah, my head hurts, too… what the hell happened?'

'That's what the rest of us have been asking,' Jounouchi muttered. 'And why's it so dark in here? Would it kill em to give us a little bit of light?'

'You're saying that like there's someone out there.'

'Maybe there is,' Jounouchi's voice squeaked a little. 'Hey y…you don't think… are we bein' _watched_ here?'

'Jounouchi don't talk like that, it's creepy!'

'Anzu, this whole damn situation is creepy. I'm tellin' ya we're bein' watched. I can _feel it_ in my bones.'

Yuugi shook his head and sat up, both of which he instantly regretted doing, because the pressure building in his skull immediately tried to drag him back down again. He had to clutch at the nearest available structure in order to stay upright. This structure just happened to be Jounouchi.

'See, Yuug? Don't say I didn't warn ya,' Jounouchi mumbled. 'Sitting up's a bad thing, 'remember?'

'Could'a warned the rest of us, too, Jounouchi,' Honda groaned. 'Why won't the damn floor just stay still?'

Anzu sighed. 'There's nothing wrong with the floor, Honda, it's your head that's causing the problem.'

'Meh, I've been tellin' him that for years.'

'Urgh. You're just lucky I'm so dizzy and freaked out, man, or you'd be paying for that right now.'

Yuugi for his part didn't say anything. He just sat there allowing himself to gather his nerves and listening to the others (actually rather comforting) bickering. A strange feeling crept across his back and it took him a moment to realise it was The Other Him's transparent hand, brushing against his shoulders in some attempt at reassurance. It was a nice gesture. The headache was fading away as well. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same thing, by now –levering themselves into sitting positions while using each other as support.

And then, for a second, he went blind again. Not because of the darkness, though, but because of the sudden return of the light. First in just a few, dim blue flickers, and then everything was caught in a sudden, white glare, washing over their automatically closed eyelids.

'Argh—god _damn it, _Honda, turn that _off_! I don't wanna go blind!'

'Hey, don't look at _me_, I didn't do anything!'

'Well someone did! Urgh, my poor, useless eyes.'

There was an impatient sigh. 'Guys, _relax_, someone just turned the lights on, you'll adjust again in a second,' Anzu – the voice of reason as always. Yuugi let her deal with Honda and Jounouchi while he tried to get to grips with his new, well lit surroundings. The light stung a little, at first, but after a second he could shield his face and finally get a decent look at the place.

What he saw was… unexpected. Mostly because it almost looked perfectly normal.

At first glance, it seemed to be an office. Or a study, maybe. And a large one, too –at least several metres wide and long. There were bookcases, shelves and a large desk positioned a few metres in front of him. A large, black fireplace sat against the far left wall with an old, western style rug positioned in front of it, half beneath Jounouchi's legs. Behind them was a window, covered with a metal mesh, and the world outside was as dark as midnight.

'**_Something isn't right_**,' the voice inside of him murmured, and it took Yuugi a couple of seconds to work out what the Other Him meant.

'Hey, check it out,' Jounouchi muttered, gazing around in a lot less dread than before. 'Not so bad, when you can see it. Looks like the principle's office at school.'

'Yeah except bigger and without all the detention slips,' Honda said. 'And what happened to all the _walls_?'

'Yeah,' Yuugi murmured. 'They're all… black.'

That was it. It was as if somebody had coated half the room in charcoal and smudged it across the other half and around the desk was a pitch black area – as if a fire had been burning around it. And yet there were no ashes, or signs of smoke damage. It was as if a fire had burned in the air and gone out without touching anything.

'Well, at least we're not lost in shadows, or anything,' Anzu muttered, casting a rather bedraggled look at Yuugi. Her hair had fallen into her face and for some reason seemed to be refusing to go back into its usual place.

Yuugi shifted his hands from the floor where he'd been using them to support his weight, but the black, charcoal like substance didn't seem to come away with him. It was as if the entire substance of the room had somehow been changed into something strange and abnormal…

…And smoking. Yuugi thought he was imagining it at first but now he could see it clearly –soft, hissing curls of grey smoke creeping around the desk and the mesh in the windows.

'**_Yuugi, Anzu might be wrong… there's far too much darkness here for it to be natural._**'

Everything went a little vague for a few moments after that. Jounouchi muttered something about how this was why he never duelled on a full moon, Anzu was muttering about the strangeness of the room they were in. Honda was arguing with Jounouchi about the validity of duelling during full moons and Yuugi…

Yuugi was simply listening. He had thought, until now, that their voices were the only sounds in the room, but now the Other Yuugi seemed to be pushing at his mind again, as if aware of something Yuugi wasn't.

_'…The Other Me?' _

**_'Someone is approaching.'_**The Other Yuugi said.

He was right, and everyone else was noticing it, now. Jounouchi had stopped arguing mid-rant. Honda had let go of Jounouchi's collar. Anzu seemed to creep slightly closer to Yuugi and reach out a hand to touch his shoulder.

Yuugi swallowed and looked up at the others 'Uh… guys. Can you…'

'Hear that?' Anzu finished. It was impossible to miss the sound now –the noise of footsteps coming towards them, clattering against a wooden floor.

**_'Yuugi—' _**

Yuugi shook his head slightly, already feeling a familiar pressure pulling on his mind and knowing what the Other Him was about to suggest._ 'No, it's alright, calm dawn, Other Me. I can… I'll be okay. Just wait, alright?' _

The Other Yuugi hesitated briefly, but then Yuugi felt the sensation retreating and took a deep breath –fully in control again. The sound of footsteps was getting closer and faster outside of the nearby door and Yuugi stood up, quickly, finding it to be a whole lot easier than sitting up had been in the first place, given that his body was no longer trying to drag him straight back down again. Which was just as well, because whatever was coming, he wanted to be on his feet for it. Everyone else was beginning to stand around him, also. Jounouchi brushing off his clothes and Anzu trying to force her hair back into some semblance of a normal style.

_'Of course, it would help if we had any idea what we're standing to _greet_.' _

They hardly had time to wonder, however. No sooner had Jounouchi gotten to his feet, the door opened and a girl walked in. No –not just _walked_ in, Yuugi realised. She almost literally forced open the door, stepped quickly inside and slammed it shut behind her, leaning heavily against it as she did so and letting out a breath. For just a second nobody moved.

And then, as the newcomer gathered herself and stood upright to address them, Yuugi heard Anzu's breath catch in her throat.

Her hair was the first thing Yuugi noticed –it was often one of the first things he noticed about the people he met, maybe because it was also normally the first thing most people noticed about _him_. She was taller than him –which most people were– and probably at least as tall as Anzu. Her clothing consisted of dim, grey trousers (maybe denim, but he couldn't be sure) and a sleeved black shirt, more like something a boy might wear, even though he'd never actually seen a boy dressed in anything quite like it. The belt was leather though probably fake, and he noticed that she wasn't wearing shoes, either indoors ones or outdoors. Her socks were old and tattered at the ends.

It was only when he returned to her face that Yuugi realised what was so strange and why all of his friends had frozen on the spot.

'Holy…' Honda's curse began well enough, but then died on his tongue before he could get to the actual swearing. Anzu's fingers tightened, trembling, on Yuugi's arm and Jounouchi, for his part, had decided to go with just standing there and looking dumbstruck.

_ '**…My Gods**,'_ the voice of the Other Yuugi commented, and Yuugi felt himself nodding jerkily in agreement. Opting, like Jounouchi, for struck dumb as his default expression while continuing to stare at the new arrival's equally astonished face.

Yuugi Muto had only ever seen a face and eyes like those of the girl now stood in front of them in a single person in his lifetime. He had grown up alongside that person and he would have recognized her anywhere and in any guise. That person was standing right besides him with her hands drawn up to her mouth, and her own eyes –bright, sapphire blue in colour– wide in disbelief. It was her whom the new girl was staring at.

And if it hadn't been for the clothing, and the slight hardness of the newcomer's jaw, and the still untidy state of Anzu's hair, each of them would have looked like an exact reflection of the other in a mirror.

* * *

She had been asleep when the storms began, but awoke the second she felt the building start to tremble. The storms would always awaken her eventually, usually dragging her out of her dreams in the process (dreams which she had always fancied might actually be memories. Past memories and future ones and present and… well, who knew what else? She thought it would be nice for have more memories, because she had so few of her own that she remembered. If her dreams were memories… well, then they'd be endless. That would be good. To have endless memories to dwell upon and know to be something better than dreams.)

She _did_ have memories. She knew she did. But not many. And it was difficult to differentiate: to tell where dreams ended and memory began. She remembered (or dreamed, perhaps. Again, it's hard to be sure) sands and burning sun, but she barely remembers what the sun must have been and she had been told that sand only came when the storms occasionally disintegrated a building.

Still, she was always disappointed when the storms awoke her. But today… today her awakening had _frightened_ her, and that… that was _different_ altogether. She hadn't feared the storms in… how long had it been? Years, most likely. Years or decades or maybe more. Time didn't have much relevance down here.

_'Nothing but disruption of happiness and hope. That's all they've ever been, dear sister.' _

She politely tells the voices to shut up. She can't be bothered to deal with them. These days, she rarely ever can.

_'You ignore us.' _

Yes. She ignored them. Usually. They were nothing worth paying attention to and anyhow, memories were more of a preoccupation. And so, right now, was the feeling that the current storm had left her with.

Perhaps…

Perhaps it wasn't the _storm_ that she feared.

She feared _something_ – she was certain of that, her hands wrung at her neck the way she knew they did whenever she was frightened awake. The storm overhead was bringing something with it. Something powerful enough to awaken her.

_'So something comes to the darkness down here. Do you feel it?' _

A tremble in her spine… what was causing that feeling? It was so hard to understand things these days.

She found herself remembering again, as she leaned back against the wall besides her bed. She saw the sand and sun and heat of a world that was nothing like Domino City about couldn't possibly exist. The storm overhead seemed to intensify the memories, condensing them inside of her mind. But these thoughts surely couldn't be _real_ memories? Not memories of the world _she_ lived in, in which was all darkness and shadows and dreams.

_'Ah, but _everything_ is real, isn't it? Your memories _and_ dreams alike. Everything you see these days is _real_. It's just not necessarily real _as of yet_. You see the problem?' _

Yes, she sees the problem. That was true, perhaps. The voices were annoying, sometimes, but she imagined they knew what they were talking about. They had to be at least rather intelligent for them to be able to hide themselves in this room and appear to her only when and how they chose, usually as simply voices. She had yet to find where they were hiding.

But still. Something was _certainly_ coming, she was sure of it and so were the voices. It drifted in from the darkness of this storm. It was almost upon her now, and it tickled in the back of her mind in a way that was nothing like the touch of a storm.

_'Your family had a purpose once, do you know that? I have told you before. Your body remembers this duty at least. You remembered the endless game, played with your heritage.' _

Family? The word meant nothing to her. Neither did the concept of duty or games. Her only duty was to stay here in the darkness and dream and, occasionally, talk to those who came to meet her. Those who wanted to ask her questions which she usually answered without really knowing how or why. One girl had been here only recently (though she couldn't be sure exactly when, she only knew that it was recently because she can still remember what the girl's face looks like and such memories usually fade away quickly). She had been a nice girl, both thoughtful and polite.

Or…

Or perhaps she hadn't been yet. Perhaps this was a future memory rather than a past one. Maybe it had yet to be.

Sometimes she grew weary of such confusion.

She stayed very still and silent for a while, listening to the storm shrieking overhead and feeling its essence make the walls tremble, but no matter how she tried she could not make out what was so different about this storm, in comparison to all the others. All she knew was that it felt different and that feeling made her whole body shudder.

Perhaps it was something to do with what the workers had been doing lately, then? With what had been happening, upstairs? Hadn't the girl who came to visit her mentioned something about such things? Perhaps not. Perhaps she was still asleep, then. Perhaps she was imagining all of this. It wouldn't be the first time.

But… no. This wasn't a dream. It couldn't be.

And then another memory seemed to leap out of nowhere.

She remembered something which felt like a kiss. That had happened to her once, she knew, when she had been a great deal younger though she couldn't be sure what age, precisely. It was one of the few things she was sure was a real memory. She remembered exactly what kisses felt like. And then, she realised that this was what the strange trembling feeling in her spine was like, except that she felt so afraid of it. More afraid then she'd ever been of anything before. The sensation reached across her back and curved against her collarbones. It made her shiver beneath her gown.

_'Something is coming.' _

Yes. It certainly was. And it was no _small_ something, either.

But then, perhaps the feeling it gave her wasn't fear after all. And with that thought, she started laughing, allowing the hollow sound to echo in the storm and dream-filled stillness, enjoying the feeling of its reflections.

* * *

**Heh. Gods be darned I took a whole chapter to introduce people to their new surroundings. Ah well. Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **


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